Democracy breaks out in new congressional district

The poetry of San Diego’s congressional politics, if there is any, is that periodically there’s one district that’s so internally — some hard-core partisans might say infernally — conflicted that it looks like the brawling democracy Walt Whitman would have celebrated.

In the 1990s, the 49th District swung from Democrat Lynn Schenk to Republican Brian Bilbray, finally settling into Democratic predictability with the permanent election of Susan Davis in 2000.

For political junkies spoiling for fights, unhappy days were there again.

Well, dueling democracy is once again breaking out in the newly formed 52nd District, anchored to the south by Coronado and sweeping north through Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, La Jolla, Mira Mesa, Scripps Ranch, Poway and Rancho Bernardo.

While San Diego’s four boringly “safe” representatives — Davis, Darrell Issa, Juan Vargas and Duncan Hunter — can bask in the sunny certainty that their re-elections in 2014 are virtually assured, Scott Peters, the 52nd’s freshman Democratic congressman, has a target on his back as large as the Soledad cross.

For national Democratic strategists, Peters is on the oh-my-God endangered list. For Republicans, he’s on the by-God extinguish list. Robust names like DeMaio and Faulconer are circulating as likely GOP challengers in 2014.

The reason for the Democratic heartburn, as well as the GOP blood lust, is simple.

The 52nd is roughly one-third Republican, one-third Democrat and one-third independent. It’s a chaotic political marketplace that changes with each election. Turnout really matters.

To the militantly moderate wing of the American electorate, however, this is the sort of ungerrymandered, up-for-grabs pot where the nation’s best gumbo has a chance of being made.

On Tuesday, I went to a morning meeting of the RB Sunrise Rotary Club to see how Peters, who beat Bilbray by an eyelash in November, has adjusted to his hard backbench in Washington.

Always a cool, almost professorial, speaker — in a 2004 column about his first campaign for San Diego City Council, I wrote: “His charm, at least in public, is of a wintry cast” — Peters took pains to endear himself to the RB Rotarians, a group that, it’s fair to guess, is largely populated by Republicans with no love for President Obama in particular or Democrats in general.

Peters stressed that his politics, though Democratic, are pragmatic, not doctrinaire. He touted his Tea Party “date” for the State of the Union address and his membership in nonpartisan groups like No Labels and the United Solutions Caucus.

He generally agrees with Obama’s approach, he said, but not the president’s disengaged style. About Washington, he said, “the academics are easier than the politics.”

He instinctively returned to the campaign-style theme that Congress is broken and it’s up to fresh, nonpartisan blood like his to put it in working order.

Of course, compromising sentiments can be easily attacked as weak, unfocused. In a recent brimstone broadside from the National Republican Congressional Committee, Peters is framed as a dead congressman walking: “Understanding that empty rhetoric and unsubstantiated claims of bipartisanship won’t resonate with California families, it’s no wonder Peters has already landed himself on the chopping block.”

This, mind you, after three months in office.

Of course, none of this acid would be thrown around if it weren’t for the inherent instability of the new 52nd and the constantly humming political-industrial complex in Washington.

“There is no such thing as a campaign cycle anymore,” local political consultant John Dadian likes to say.

In Peters’ case, the Dadian axiom is doubly true. The congressman has one year to bring home trophies that gleam, or what happened to Schenk could very well happen to him.

Peters, however, has one huge advantage. A fabulously wealthy congressman, he does not have to scrounge for dollars around the clock. He does, however, have to scrounge for the faith of the independents who will vote during low-turnout, nonpresidential elections.

But you know what? Peters has a fighting chance. By all appearances, he made friends among the patriotic RB Rotarians. They might not all vote for him, but they seemed to respect the mild-mannered Democrat running in the middle of a winding road with partisan fire on both sides.

The 52nd is the most valuable, and interesting, national prize in our southwestern neck of the country.

If you want to hear America singing in all its cacophonous glory, this is the venue for you.